Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran , hrgb2004@yahoo.com

Abstract: (1168 Views)

Background and Objective: Correct and early diagnosis of infections contributes to proper treatment and helps prevent unnecessary antibiotic treatment. Thus, we aimed to compare the predictive values of the absolute neutrophil count, band count, and toxic granulation of neutrophils with the serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in bacterial infections.Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, we enrolled 200 patients who were admitted to the infectious disease ward of Sina Hospital, Hamadan, Iran, for bacterial infections in the first 6 months of 2016. The participants were chosen using the census sampling method. Before initiating the treatment, to carry out complete blood count (CBC) and quantitative CRP, 5 cc blood was obtained from the patients after obtaining their permission, and the percentages of neutrophils, band cells, and toxic granulation were evaluated in peripheral blood smear. This information and demographic data were collected by a checklist and analyzed by using SPSS, version 16.Results: The mean age of the patients was 56.26 years (range: 12 to 103 years), and 60.5% of the participants were male. The most frequent causes of hospitalization were pneumonia, soft tissue infections, sepsis, urinary tract infection, septic arthritis, and dysentery. The means of serum CRP, absolute neutrophil count, and band-cell count were 61.18 mg/L, 815.86 per mm3, and 318.86 per mm3, respectively. The correlation coefficients between quantitative CRP and absolute neutrophil count, band count, and toxic granulation severity were 0.43, 0.47, and 0.47, respectively.Conclusion: The results of the present study shows a linear correlation between CRP and the absolute neutrophil count, band count, and toxic granulation, indicating that these variables can replace CRP in the diagnosis of infections. Also, the predictive values of toxic granulation and band count for replacing CRP are equal and higher than that of absolute neutrophil count.